


Lady’s Glove

by maraudersreign



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anxiety, Character Death, Depression, F/M, I am so sorry, Past Relationship(s), Trauma, Triggers, this is so bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29798511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudersreign/pseuds/maraudersreign
Summary: “Lady’s Glove, a breed of flower that was my mother’s favorite.” He says, standing close to her, she narrows her eyes in on the flower and suddenly he is handing it to her.He places it in her hand gently.He smiles. A weak one — but it’s enough.It almost knocks the breath out of her.“What is.. what is this for?”“You mean why I gave you the flower?”“Yes,”— Hermione Granger and Theodore Nott are best friends. Tragically so.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott
Comments: 18
Kudos: 53





	Lady’s Glove

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for this not being my best work at all. There’s been so much that’s happened in the last few days that have refrained me from writing. I just need muchclearer headspace to continue writing at the moment. 
> 
> I’m sorry for three things: 
> 
> 1\. Theodore Nott deserves better  
> 2\. One  
> 3\. Go back to one
> 
> TW for alcohol abuse. 
> 
> I’ve written this as an escape for my own past friendship/parent relationship. The characters stay true to their personalities and how I think they would take control of this situation.

**_April 2nd 2003_ **

She feels the alcohol slide down her throat, making its way harshly through her chest and it’s burning her from the inside out. She watches him closely. Her eyes never leave his — and he knows why she is watching him. 

She makes a point of it every night. 

He sips on the alcohol when he sits in front of her and their friends. He just sips and she burns holes into his hands and then watches as he knocks back the shot, fast. He takes another one. Then again and again. All fast and _too much_. She knows he’ll be sick and he is taunting her while he knows she is looking at him. He is sick. Sick and it shatters her heart into a million pieces as she goes to leave. 

She’s aware that he hears her glass cup shatter upon the table, not realising that she’s let it linger off the edges of her fingers and drops it almost soundlessly onto the hard wood of the table that stood on all fours beside her. 

She tastes blood on the tip of her tongue as she marches out of his manor. 

It’s cold and it almost _hurts._

It burns and she knows this is probably going to get worse. She let’s it scab over, _he’ll_ let that happen and then it’ll be peeled open. A fresh wound. One that never seems to heal. 

Because Theo is her best friend and she has no clue how to stop the rushing ache that tears her heart apart every time she watches him drink. 

**_April 14th 2003_ **

It’s almost his birthday and she knows he’ll find his way to the bottom of every bottle in his manors wine cupboard — then he’ll move onto his _dead_ father’s alcohol that he left somewhere hidden ages ago near the drawing room. He’ll find it and she’ll have to find _him._

It’s almost midnight and she’s got herself glued to her bed for it feels like hours and then she decides she’ll pace around the room. Her feet hitting loudly against the ground, thumping angrily and chewing on her nails in a nervous tick as she turns and hits her chest to a bold figure. 

_Draco._

She doesn’t stop to think or even breathe and she doesn’t let the words leave her mouth. Draco… he can’t know. She knows she couldn’t possibly let that happen. She keeps her lips in a tight line and stands there almost frozen in front of him. She made well on her promise to Theo; years ago. 

She clamps her mouth down hard and her teeth dig into the flesh of her lips, she tastes metallic and the blood almost soothes the beating pulse in her neck and stomach.

Draco’s eyes linger on her pacing that she has continued and suddenly she feels strong hands tighten roughly against her sensitive and trembling shoulders. 

She feels him turn her around. 

She inhales, reaching out for him. Her face clouded by his comforting scent. She nuzzles her head closer to him. To his heart. She has to listen to his heart beat, she has to count every thump against her ear as it smooths out the broken cracks of her anxiety. 

_Please be okay._

She doesn’t realize she has said it out loud till she feels Draco hum against the top of her head and then he pulls her closer. He kisses her temple tentatively as he tells her he loves her. 

She muffles ‘love you more’ into his chest as her eyelids threaten to weigh heavy, sleep coating her entire body. 

She needs to know Theo will be okay. 

**_April 16th 2003_ **

She finds him again. 

She finds him curled up on his bedroom floor, the fire dim and the rest of his alcohol has spilled out and covered his trousers, including the carpet underneath him. 

It truly is a sight that makes her want to retch. 

She wants to reach out. She wants to do everything that makes it possible to stop it. The time must stop any minute now — for him. Because his face is pale and his lips look a mix of the ocean and the sky right before the sun sets, a mixture of both that makes her stomach tilt like a wave in the sea before she falls to her knees beside him. 

Her chest feels as if it is filled to the brim with butterflies, begging to knock the air that somehow is still flowing through her lungs. 

_What have you done? What.. have you done?_

She says it outloud in a strangled sob that seems to make its way out of her throat. The tears stream down her face, she feels them hit her lips and the taste of it is bitter.. these tears shouldn’t be happening. 

Her hand stretches out to touch his face, she realises now that it is trembling so hard it threatens to snap back to her side, while she tries to ride the rising vital signs of her anxiety. 

Cold. 

Yet, she can still feel the way his breath hits the back of her hand and causes goosebumps to appear on her skin. 

She has to call for someone. The panic bubbling up in her ribcage, she feels it almost breakout as she places the palm of her hands to his icy cheeks and tilts his head straight. 

“Theo.. wake up. Theo?” 

She hears his breathing. It’s slow, but it’s ringing in her ears like it is possibly the only good thing that has ever happened to her. 

She shakes him and her hands feel like their burning. Her voice cracking through her screams and she begs him to wake up. She begs him to be alive. Stay alive. 

It’s only when he tilts his head back on his own accord and his eyelids look as if they are unscrewing themselves. 

She rushes to find the replenishing potions in her bag, uncorks the vial and she forces it down his throat. He nearly chokes, but he takes all of it. 

The glass vial falls from the tips of her fingers and it vanishes before it hits the floor to prevent any noise. Hermione stares at him, she takes him in, for she knows that she is grateful that it won’t be for the last time. 

Her eyes go wide at the sight and it hits her. It hit her like everything in front of her was being pulled away, being sucked away. 

Hermione always found him. 

She did. 

And she always saved him. 

Finally, he lifts his head up and he says nothing. No words leave his lips; that are now turning back to their rose-bud red shade. They move but no noise comes out. He crashes his body to hers and he wraps himself around her. 

She closes her eyes and has to remember the way it feels to hug her best friend. 

**_April 21st 2003_ **

It’s his birthday and she knows she’ll have to stay up. She’ll have to watch him as he almost drinks himself to death, again. 

She knows this is what it’s like to have her strings be pulled on, to have them be played like a piano and it’s not in the beautiful way. It sounds awful and it doesn’t create melodies you want to hear. It is screams and shattering glass that glides smoothly right through the arteries of her strongest organ. 

**_10:03 PM_ **

Her eyes are tired and she doesn’t even remember to rub them to ease the pressure that weighs down heavy on her lids. 

She stares and she waits for him to fall asleep. 

Making sure to count each breath he takes before she walks out the door and is able to finally breathe in the air she needs, building up a calm mind as she apparates.

She goes back home to Malfoy and she cries into his chest. He doesn’t force her to say anything, he just holds her till she finally is peacefully asleep against his beating heart. 

**_May 15th 2003_ **

She stands in front of his door. She waits for something — anything to tell her to stay. 

He wouldn’t want that. 

Because—Theo is screaming again and she hears the thud and clatter of every glass shard that makes it way into the floor. Something pricks at her eye, flooding. It weighs heavy and it _burns._ A minute later and the tears of salt and melancholy stream down her face. 

She stays. 

**_May 26th 2003_ **

He stands on the left side of his door and she’s waiting for him to say anything. Something. She’s not sure how long she’ll have to keep this up, making up every excuse — she’s the only one to get to know the pain. Hear the pain. She saves the shredding of screams, ache and throe that comes with haburing Theodore Nott’s greatest weakness. 

His dead mother. His dead father. 

His dead girlfriend. 

It’s something he wasn’t meant to put away in a box forever and carry on. That’s what he says to her. 

“It doesn’t make sense. I don’t make sense. I just feel like I’m waiting for the day it all changes, the day it ends and I see my mother’s smile again..” 

She stays again that night. 

She plucks the bottle from his hand and she places a tentative kiss on his forehead. 

She sings him to sleep. 

**_June 5th 2003_ **

Malfoy has started to ask questions. 

He stays with her most nights — he wonders why the bags on her eyes have turned the shades of purple and blue. Why she doesn’t dare lift her head every time he says he loves her. He wonders why everything she says has become dull. Dense. Nothing. 

Her focus has drifted from him. 

Not entirely—but enough to make him worry at his lip and create a disheveled version of himself. 

It was his birthday after all. 

She kisses him one time and then she falls to sleep. 

**_June 12th 2003_ **

She tries to make his mother’s tea. Tries to recreate the way it tasted and made his eyes light up. The way it sent warmth through his entire body, made him look almost animated in his features and — alive. 

He lays in bed. Hermione isn’t sure he is aware of her presence — she thinks he almost never is. 

But she’s there everyday after work. 

Every night. 

Just to hear him breathe. 

Just to keep him _alive._

She never gives him the tea. 

She lets it sit on the counter.

“I hope it at least helps you out of bed..” She whispers to herself, holding her hands to her chest and closing her eyes. 

“You’ll be okay..” 

**_June 30th 2003_ **

She doesn’t stay. 

He doesn’t notice. 

**_July 6th 2003_ **

Theo leaves his bed. 

He walks around the Manor and she decides to join him, looking over at his pale face, she notices much more than she cares to admit. 

His eyes are sunken in, the rims of them red. The brown undertone that shades in his eyes, he must not actually be sleeping. Not at all. 

The air around them is cold and it somehow reminds her of the bitter chill of winter, a time where things weren’t like this. Not for her — not for him. They don’t exchange many words, but she wants to talk. They need to. Needs to know how he is. How he feels. Because the burn of the alcohol only dulls him out quicker. 

They take tentative steps on the stone, the one that leads them to a resplendency garden. 

She watches his feet stop. Unmoving. 

Right in front of a small piece of land filled with purple flowers. 

He stands there; his hair messily blowing in different directions caused by the overwhelming wind. His hands tucked into his pleated pants and he lets out a sigh. One that sounds like he has kept in a cage for far too long, one that he has let the metal bars rust over. He closes his eyes and she can only imagine he is feeling the weight of the earth — one step at a time. Again. Nature's greatest accomplishments. A smile dares to pull at his lips. 

It never does. 

“How are you?” She asks, the words nearly shake off her tongue, because she’s not sure what answer she will get. What she should be prepared for. 

He sighs again. He inhales the breeze that flows through them. 

“I’m.. well. I’m well. I think I could always be better, but I don’t hold much to that notion anymore. You’ve seen how I’ve been these last few months — this last year. I’m _not_ sure how to live anymore. You’re the only one that I see. The only one that really knows how I am.” 

She lets him continue. 

He mentions that he did eventually have a few cups of the tea she made. 

He said it tasted almost identical to his mother’s. He never once looked in her direction but — she could see water form at the brim of his eyes. They never fall. 

Hermione never really thought he took much notice to her being there. 

But — he did. 

**_July 9th 2003 _ **

Their back at the garden again. 

The sound of small birds surrounding them and filling their eardrums with the infliction of song. 

Hermione notices a change in his expression, a look to the way his eyebrows arch and his lips slightly curve. 

He walks into the garden of flowers. 

She watches him kneel and pluck a small flower — examining it, looking at her as he walks back. Holding it tightly in his palm. 

He doesn’t say much. Not until he sees her smile down in confusion at the tubular with bright rosy-purple leafs and white speckled throats. 

“What’s this?” 

“Lady’s Glove, a breed of flower that was my mother’s favorite.” He says, standing close to her, she narrows her eyes in on the flower and suddenly he is handing it to her. 

He places it in her hand gently. 

He smiles. A weak one — but it’s _enough._

It almost knocks the breath out of her. 

“What is.. what is this for?” 

“You mean _why_ I gave you the flower?” 

“Yes,” 

“It’s a thank you.. one that I haven’t been able to properly say to you. The flower it- it reminds me of you. Lady’s Glove attracts many things, wonderful things. Because it is wonderful and it is comely. You’re all of those things, Hermione. You’re more.” He places his hand over hers, the one with the _Lady’s Glove._ He squeezes it tightly in her hand, bringing it up towards his face and then his lips connect to her skin. 

She’s not sure how to react. 

What to say. 

It brings tears to her eyes. 

Tears that no longer taste like melancholy. They taste like mitigation. That sudden reduction of _pain._ It completely engulfs her. 

It engulfs her one last time. 

“Thank you.” 

**_August 2nd 2003_ **

The _Prophet’s_ headline is what makes him drink himself to near death again. 

His slim fingers tremble as he clutches the paper in his hands. 

**TRAGIC DEATH HITS MINISTRY OF MAGIC AND ALL OF THE WIZARDING WORLD ; HERMIONE GRANGER**

She’d been killed in Italy. 

He fucking hated Italy. 

He smashes the glass to the floor, his chest heaving and his face red. Tears won’t stop coming out. They don’t. Not for a long time. 

He only got to say thank you to her once. One fucking time. _That’s all…_

Because she saved his life. 

And he didn’t get to save hers. 

His _Lady Glove._

**_November 2003_ **

He reaches for the book on his nightstand. The one Draco left for him. 

It was hers. 

His fingers run over the embroidered lettering and he hesitates to open the book — until he sees a sudden fading shade of purple.

He opens the page it has been left on for over four months now. 

Staring down at the fading flower.. a rush of everything bursts out of his chest. He thinks back to the day he gave her the _Lady’s Glove._

He doesn’t drink. 

He doesn’t.. 

He only cries harder and screams louder. 

But he tries to keep going for her. 

He has to. 

Because Theodore Nott owes everything to Hermione Granger. 

Because there is blood running through his pathetic veins, there is warmth in his skin and his lips are no longer purple. He no longer fights the enigma of death. Death that he once thought he deserved. 

**_September 19th 2006_ **

The encroaching light beside him goes out, flashing before him. He rubs his fatigued and burning eyes, ones that soon are directed down at the engraved stone. 

Three years. 

A headstone that somehow still hasn’t aged. 

And it’s her birthday. 

Theo sought out help more than what he needed in 2004 — The ache in his throat reminds greatly so. The one that burns minor holes in his fragmented soul and creates a branch of fire in his tormented heart. He is the inferno. It isn’t tragic — not anymore. He doesn’t dwell on such inclinations that used to rile him in. He is somehow _better._

He feels selfish most days when he thinks too hard about it. When he thinks about her. 

Because.. he is alive. She’s not. She doesn't get to see how far he’s come. She doesn’t get to see him move on to more enticing and divine things. She doesn’t get to know — she’s the reason for it all. She doesn’t get to watch him blossom into what she always expected of him. Something that was always greater than himself. She doesn’t get to know that he is now a father. That he is married to a gorgeous witch named Annebella, that he met on a trip to Paris.. with _her_ husband. 

She doesn’t know that her husband is slowly falling apart without her. 

She doesn’t know that he is withering away. 

He doesn’t think he deserves to be here when she is 6 foot under. 

All things Theo has learned of in the past few years of her sudden passing. 

Draco curses himself everyday for not having children with her. 

What he would give to see her curls again. To see her honey swirled eyes be engulfed by the sun that settles between the horizon. The way her smile made his heart splinter with love that he _finally_ had. That he would never have again. 

It was never that easy. 

Hermione Granger was more than just pretty words on a piece of paper that he kept crumbled in a book. 

Now — Theo comes to spend her birthday staring at her name engraved into fucking stone. 

**_Hermione Granger-Malfoy_ **

**_A loving friend, daughter and wife. The golden of everything. The bright of dark._ **

**_September 19th 1979 — July 10th 2003_ **

  
His body plummets to the ground. 

The book in his hand opens. It opens to the page of the flower he has kept for three years. 

The one that is now the shaded colour of purple — it’s almost lavender, maybe even white. It’s beautiful ubiquity that was once so very common to the eye, gone. 

_Gone._

Dead and gone just like her. 

His Lady Glove. 


End file.
